Kielenkannaltaan

Kielenkannaltaan is a Finnish adverbial expression meaning "from the language's perspective" or "linguistically." It is used to frame statements as analyses from a linguistic viewpoint rather than from a general or non-linguistic standpoint. The expression is common in academic writing, linguistics, and descriptive analyses of language, where authors want to explicitly situate their observations within the field of language study.

Form and usage: The expression is built from kielen, the genitive form of kieli (language), and kannaltaan, which conveys "from the standpoint." In standard Finnish, the phrase is typically written as two words: kielen kannaltaan. In some texts a tighter compound form kielenkannaltaan may appear, but this is less common and can be viewed as stylistic variation. The choice between two-word and compound forms does not usually change the meaning, though the two-word version is more widely accepted in formal writing.

Example: Kielenkannaltaan tarkasteltuna suomen sanajärjestys on joustava. This sentence means "From a linguistic standpoint, Finnish word order is flexible," signaling that the claim is presented as a linguistic analysis rather than a universal or non-linguistic assertion.

See also: kielioppi, linguistics, language analysis.